


Twice as Far

by slinusmarlevort



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Coming Out, Coming of Age, Homophobia, M/M, Slurs, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-08 01:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slinusmarlevort/pseuds/slinusmarlevort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason Grace has been moving around all of his life. Nico di Angelo's been stuck in Ambrose, but he was always different from the rest. Somehow, they find common ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Passing Moments

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Pretty Boy](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/33908) by omocat. 



Jason feels an early October morning chill and rain drops trickling down his spine and genuinely questions why Octavian told him that he would hate the weather in New York.

He savors his walk from the spot in the parking lot where Thalia's old sky-blue Toyota sat to the front entrance of Ambrose Senior High, even when he witnesses a dark, impish-looking boy bolting up the concrete steps with a manic grin, using an open textbook as an umbrella, while another kid (taller, broader, and hugging an unzipped backpack) dashes after him, shouting something loud, probably crude, and nearly incomprehensible in the mild storm. Public schools don’t really change that much, even if they’re indoors and in a totally different part of the country.

He’s a few paces behind the slower of the two kids, who actually holds the glass-paned front door of the school open for him. Sort of. The boy bolts as soon as Jason's just close enough to catch the door before it falls on him, which ends up being futile since Jason notices his tormentor sitting on a bench in the lobby just on his left, while the other kid's dashing down the main hallway.

The kid's face is smug, and he holds a finger to his lips.

"Are you going to give that back to him?" asks Jason.

"Eventually." Jason's not sure if he buys that, but he also doesn't know if the situation's worth involving himself in. He braves himself, as he has done many times before, and opens the door to the main office.

There's a woman, early 40s, brown hair, sitting behind the counter, eyes not deviating from the monitor of the desktop. Jason thinks of one of his SAT vocab words: _tepid_.

"May I help you?" She doesn't ask this unkindly. Jason looks at the nameplate on her desk: Ms. Jackson.

"My name's Jason Grace," he says. "I'm new, and I just wanted to get my locker combination."

"Oh, we have that all set up for you,” says Ms. Jackson. She hands him several papers, paper-clipped together. “I think one of the student council members is supposed to show you around.”

"That would be me.” Jason turns and sees a girl with her arms folded on the edge of the counter. He notes that she looks tough, and tomboyish; she has lean muscles under the sleeves of her white t-shirt, and her only decoration is the eagle feather in her brown hair. She slides away from the counter and takes a few steps towards him. “I’m Piper. Welcome to Ambrose.”

 

When Nico first hears the name, he figures that it’s supposed to be ironic. Dark circles and a sickly pallor are, obviously, features that no individual would ever consider “pretty,” and the fluorescent lights he walks under - along with his tormentors – for seven hours a day succeeded in emphasizing them.

There are seldom few people in the building at 6:55 in the morning. Nico tastes heat and bitterness as he sips from a chrome-plated thermos, and he thinks that maybe this will be a fly-under-the-radar type of day.

He feels a hand on his shoulder while he’s stashing away his trigonometry textbook in his locker and nearly jumps out of his skin.

He wants to wipe the smug grin off of Percy Jackson’s face.

With affection, of course.

Nico’s tired, but he works up enough energy to mutter, “Nobody should be this enthusiastic this early.”

“So you definitely didn’t mean gay as in ‘happy’ in that Facebook status last night,” says Percy.

There’s a brief, emotional rush, and Nico knows that it isn’t from the caffeine.

“Someone hacked my account?” Nico tries to smile, wonders if he means that as a joke or a feeble cover-up.

The seven a.m. bell makes a more effective attempt at diffusing the awkwardness than Nico does, but Percy looks at him warmly and simply says, “I’m proud of you.”

“Oh,” replies Nico.

“You know, I didn’t really see it coming,” says Percy, “but honestly, _it was so obvious_ —“

“I told you _three months ago_.” He’s been using his locker door as a shield for the past minute or so, and doesn’t think that he has ever taken such an interest in the gum wrappers and broken mechanical pencils at the bottom of his backpack. “Or at least I implied it.”

“I’m joking.” Nico checks the front pocket of his backpack for a third time before he finally, slowly shuts his locker, and takes a good look at Percy, who’s running fingers through his hair. “And, you know, I—I don’t care. Well, I mean, I care about your feelings, but it doesn’t have to be this weird—“

“Percy?”

“Yes?”

Nico actually meets his gaze this time. “You don’t have to feel weird about, uh, that thing. I mean, I got over it.”

There's a flash of speculativeness across his face, and then surprise. "Well, if you need anything, I'm…" Percy flips out his phone, and his cheeks flush. “Um, I'm sorry man, but—“

Nico waves his hand. “Go to your girlfriend. I’ll be fine.”

“Alright.” Percy leaves Nico with a shoulder clap and a stupid smile before he nearly skips down the hall, swerving past clusters of students entering the building with the agility of a swimmer.

Nico decides to go to the library, try to work on his _Scarlet Letter_ essay and ignore those bouts of paranoia telling him that he made the wrong decision last night.

As he passes a couple of lumbering seniors and juniors, he flinches upon hearing one of them mutter _faggot_ , and attempts being rational.

 _People say it everyday_ ; _it’s probably not about you_.

Nico doesn’t think that it’s about him, at first, when a senior croons “pretty boy” across the hallway, to the bemusement of a cluster of teenage boys standing around him, and a girl with silky dark hair who covers her mouth as she laughs into his shoulder.

The guy yells, “Hey, pretty boy! Wanna go out on a date?”

He’s frozen from brain to feet. And he doesn’t want to look at their faces, to confirm that he might no longer have a social invisibility cloak, but that fails to prevent him from turning his head, seeing them all (except for one) caught in mid-laughter and knowing smirks.

Nico’s shaken alive when two upperclassmen maneuver around him to reach one of the lockers, a guy and a girl. The guy, tall, blonde, and built, catches his eyes for a split second as he walks past him before he begins to open his locker.

While his brain moves on, and his feet decide to carry his body to homeroom (because there won’t be enough time for the library, at this point) his instincts are still caught in the moment, unable to shake off the twist in his gut for the rest of the morning.


	2. Perceptions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you were eagerly anticipating the next chapter back when I first published this a millennium and an apocalypse ago, "I'm sorry" probably doesn't suffice. Or maybe I'm exaggerating.  
> I was really unsatisfied with this chapter's length, and I guess I never bothered to continue with it. But I'd really appreciate any feedback that you guys could provide.

Piper is guiding Jason between round tables in the cafeteria before they finally stop at one only occupied by two boys. She uses a gargantuan, yellowed copy of _Les Miserables_ that vibrates the table’s legs to catch their attention as it falls with a _thunk_.

One of them turns his head, and Jason remembers him as the puny kid from earlier that morning that had stolen the textbook of the bigger guy (who is now sitting next to him).

The small boy’s eyes are on Piper and then on the book. “Christ, Piper,” he says. “Is that in _French_?”

Piper pulls two seats out from under the table. “I’m doing an independent study.” She lowers herself into one of the chairs, and Jason copies her. “Anyways, this is Jason. He’s from San Francisco.”

The attention’s on him now, so he gives a simple, “Hey, guys.”

The tall boy smiles at Jason. “I’m Frank, and this...” He makes a gesture towards the smaller boy. “...Is my personal Hell on Earth.”

Frank’s comment, strangely enough, makes his Personal Hell on Earth grin maniacally. “Leo Valdez,” he says.

“So,” says Jason, “did he give you your textbook back?”

Frank’s wearing a look of confusion as he chews his sandwich, which reminds Jason of a blowfish. “How did you—”

“He was there, in the parking lot this morning,” explains Leo.

“Oh...well, he did. Eventually,” says Frank. “But now, I don’t know what problems I’m supposed to do for Calc tonight, since a couple of the pages are stuck together. Because, you know, they got wet.”

“Jeez, Leo.” Piper frowns a bit as she tosses her salad. “Can’t you lay off the guy for one day?”

Leo hesitates. “I think the alternative might be lighting myself on fire.”

Jason notices Frank’s face shift from annoyance to undeniable discomfort, but Leo appears oblivious. Piper gives him a small, sad sort of smile, before saying, “So, any telling when Mr. Brunner is gonna give back those essays?”

“Well, hopefully he finishes by the end of the quarter.” Frank’s eyes are on Piper, and they are wearing a dress of gratitude. “Which is literally the end of this week.”

“You know, he’s like, probably the smartest teacher at this school,” says Leo, “But god, the _slowest_ fucking grader.”

While the other three are wrapped in their own rapport, Jason looks around the cafeteria. Socially, the school’s only slightly different from San Francisco: notably less diverse, for one thing. His table is one of the few that isn’t mostly made up of white kids, with everyone clearly coming from a different ethnic background. But he still gets the feel of the different groups and slight hierarchy between students, and then he sees who he figures is the town loner, a slim black-haired kid dressed in dark colors and nibbling at his sandwich.

With a jolt, he realizes that he has seen him before.

“Jason!”

He is back at the table and notices Leo’s smirk, Frank’s stare, and Piper’s grin, and all of it makes his face feel too hot. Instinctively, he stiffens. “Sorry,” says Jason. “I don’t, uh, usually zone out that often.”

“S’okay.” Leo finishes gulping down approximately a quarter of his sandwich wrap. “That Nico di Angelo kid’s kind of got a weird face.”

“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Frank’s nonchalant as he sips his Capri Sun pouch, slyly gazing down at a seemingly jaded Leo.

Jason has always regarded his brain-mouth filter with high esteem, but inexplicably, it short-circuits when he blurts out, “So what’s his deal, anyways?” He seems to have made everybody at the table a little bit wary.

“He’s just some sophomore, with like, depression or something.” Piper bites her lip. “I mean, from what I’ve heard, he hates being social.”

“I think the only two people he talks to are in a different lunch period,” says Frank. “This senior, Percy Jackson and, uh—“

“His hot freshman stepsister that Frank’s too scared to ask out,” finishes Leo.

“Her name’s _Hazel_.” The pitch of Frank’s voice rises upon saying her name, as well as the red tint of his olive cheeks.

“My friend Annabeth used to talk to him, too.” Piper frowns. “I think he had a crush on her, or something, because when she started dating Percy, he cut both of them off.”

Frank and Leo exchange looks, and Frank plainly says, “I don’t think Annabeth is his type.”

Jason’s confused, but when Piper sees Leo’s smirk, Leo Valdez not tearing apart a comment made by Frank Zhang, her mouth widens into an ‘oh.’ “Holy _shit_.” She stares between them, and then over Jason’s head, at Nico, as if she was about to miss something. He recalls the seven a.m. episode, and he lets it sink in.

“Yeah, he came out of the closet on Facebook last Saturday,” says Frank.

“So him and Percy...” mutters Piper.

“Aren’t you kind of jumping to conclusions, there?” Jason attributes the lump in his throat to a bite of his sandwich he forgot to swallow.

Frank considers him for a moment. “I guess it doesn’t phase you as much, since you’re from San Francisco.”

Jason doesn’t know what to say in response (because it was sort of a weird thing to say, and if only Frank knew _his parents_ ) before Leo chimes in. “It’s not like someone comes out of the closet every other day over there, Frank.”

Piper makes an idle smile at Leo’s comment that fades away in passing seconds and is eaten by a corrosive glare. “That _jackass_.”

Her voice comes out like a splash of acid, and Jason finds it a bit unnerving. He looks across the table; Frank and Leo’s faces tell him that he’s not the only one who’s confused.

“Who’s a jackass?” asks Leo.

Piper stares at the two of them, eyes like razors. “You were _both_ there with Matt Sloan in the hallway this morning.”

Frank is fidgeting over the plastic seal of a bag of grapes while Leo looks off to the side. Piper raises an eyebrow, expecting an answer. "I tried talking to him about it," says Frank. "He just kinda…laughed it off, and said it wasn't about him being gay." He looks at Piper again and flinches. "Look, I know it's still bad, but you can't really…" Frank turns to Leo. "I'm gonna sound like a douchebag."

Leo looks back at him, tight-lipped, as if to say, _And that’s where I come along_. "I'm not gonna get on Matt Sloan's bad side for some kid that I barely know,” he says. “And neither are you.”

Piper opens her mouth, but whatever she says is lost in a cacophony of chatter and the lunch bell. None of them look at each other for too long before they head towards the exit. When Jason pushes his chair in, his eyes linger on Nico di Angelo’s small, dark-haired body at the back of the blockade of students pulsing through the double doors.

 

Ten mole math problems that were initially met with a collective moan by his chemistry class in first period ends up being what Nico needs to drain everything he’d gone through that day from his mind.

He’s working under the light of his desk lamp and doesn’t notice three soft knocks, a door creak open and the ceiling lamp flicker on.

“Nico.”

He spins around in his chair at the sound of his name and finally sees Hazel, brown hair mussed in a ponytail, dressed in sweats, sneakers, and an orange hoodie with a knight riding a horse emblazoned with the words “Ambrose High Cross Country.”

It’s probably the first time he’s smiled that day (sort of).

“Hey, Hazel,” he says. “Did you get a ride from Annabeth?”

“Yes. But we need to talk.”

She steps into his room and sits on the foot of his bed. When Nico rotates slowly in his desk chair, their knees are less than a yard apart.

“Did you it think through? What you did last Saturday?”

Nico stares at her. “Did something happen to you today?”

Hazel raises an eyebrow. “Why would something happen to me? I’m worried about you.”

“Hazel...”

“You’ve been dealing with too much shit these days, and—“

“Whoa, watch you’re fucking language.” He catches the laugh just in time before Hazel sobers.

“I’m serious, though.” Nico shifts in his seat as the mood in his room stifles. “The whole thing in the summer...You know, your dad’s still pissed at Percy.” Hazel says her last sentence carefully, as if to ensure that she hadn’t omitted the word “your.”

Nico tries his best not to give Hazel a very telling look. His attempts are proven futile. “Yes, Nico.” She sighs. “Otto actually cares about you.”

“Or, he cares about the fact that Percy kind of permanently jacked up the mailbox and gave the new Honda a fender bender.” His mouth is still open when it receives the full blow of the pillow Hazel thrusts at him. Nico idly thinks about the probable saliva stain on its case when he throws it back at her (it misses) and says, “You know, that joke _was_ out of line. Thank you for reprimanding me, Miss Levesque.”

She rolls her eyes, and answers in an equally sardonic voice, “Happy to help, Mr. di Angelo.”

For a while, the only audible noise in Nico’s bedroom is the whine of the wind rustling outside of the window. He watches Hazel’s socked feet swing inches above the floor for a few seconds.

“Has anybody been giving you crap, lately?”

Nico catches the glint of her golden eyes and looks at her nose when he realizes that he can’t lie to them. The words “not to my face, at least,” fall of out his lips. Hazel looks at him, suspiciously, but the furrow in her brow breaks with resignation. She lifts herself from his bed fluidly and says, “I’m gonna do my homework.”

He looks out of the window and takes sight of the dark, dampened roads and gray skies. “I think I’m going to go on a walk,” he says. “I’ll bring my cell phone with me.” Hazel holds the door out behind her before taking one last look at Nico and leaving his room.

 

After every few paces he takes on the sidewalk, Nico finds himself sheltered by a canopy of orange or yellow or brown leaves dangling from thick branches from the trees lining the terrace. There’s a rustle of branches in the air above him; he looks up, and sees a black mother bird sitting in a nest.

He jumps and almost trips to the blare of a car horn from a dark gray sedan. The window rolls down, and he sees Hazel with her golden hair wet, peering out of the passenger seat next to her mother – a woman who matches her from her dark skin and gold eyes to her presently sour face.

“We got a dinner invite,” explains Hazel, as if it was the worst event to ever bestow the di Angelo-Levesque family. “And you left your phone on the table in the foyer.”

With that information, Nico decides not to ask any questions right away. He hops over the terrace, onto the curb, and pushes a mesh, drawstring gym bag across the black leather seat before buckling himself in.

“I just wanted to give them lasagna.” His stepmother sighs as she turns around the block. “But then, that woman just...”

“It’s alright, Marie,” says Nico. Marie Levesque pulls the sedan over next to the curb of the sidewalk, in front of a stately white house with large, sealed brown boxes in its latticed front porch. “So, who are these people, anyways?”

Cold wind runs through the car after Hazel pushes open a door. She looks back at Nico over the top of her seat. “They’re the Graces,” she says. “They just moved here.”

 

 _Marie has made better lasagna_ , is Nico’s only thought as he idly fishes pieces of pasta out of the sea of cheese and meat sauce in one of the Grace’s blue ceramic bowls.

The only two people who are conversing at the moment are Marie and Mrs. Grace, a fair, plastic-faced, and all-American woman. But Mrs. Grace – whose first name, he learns when she loudly proclaims that Hazel and he are free to refer to her by it, is Kelly - strikes Nico as the type of person who could have a conversation with a brick wall. The only words he can recall his stepmother saying in the past half hour are, “My husband’s a funeral home director,” and “He’s not adopted, he’s my stepson.”

As Kelly tells Marie about how “people here give more of a concern for _family values_ than in San Francisco,” Nico stifles a laugh in response to Hazel and Marie’s matching expressions of ennui.

“But my daughter, Thalia – she’s older than Jason, fourth-year at Barnard – she’s going through a bit of a radical phase.” Mrs. Grace takes a sip of water from her lemon-wedged glass. “You know how those college kids can be.”

Nico hasn’t been paying much mind to Jason, a jocky-looking blond boy sitting at the opposite end of the table, right on his left. He looks about as weary as the rest of them, and Nico decides that maybe, possibly, he is not as bad as his mother.

But his blood runs cold when he realizes why Jason seems so familiar, and why his eyes appear to flit towards him more than Hazel. He tries to calm himself down as he takes another gulp of lasagna. What was the chance that Jason was able to figure out why the seven a.m. incident had even happened, just from hearing an upperclassman jokingly flirt with Nico?

He doesn’t realize that he’s been sort of staring blankly in the other boy’s general direction until Jason slowly raises his hand. “...and that’s when I left the theater—“ Mrs. Grace, for once, stops talking. “Yes, Jason?”

“Um, since everyone’s done, is it alright if we – Nico, Hazel, and I – watch Netflix?” Jason then looks down at Nico’s bowl. “Oh, um, well, Nico can finish up soon...”

“Yes, he can,” says Hazel. Nico suspects that the smile on her face is her attempt to temper the venom in her voice.

“No, Nico doesn’t have to eat if he doesn’t want to.” Nico doesn’t really know if it’s appropriate to say “thank you,” so he tries his best nonverbally when he catches Marie’s eyes across the table.

But Marie’s focus appears to be one Mrs. Grace, who’s looking at her as if she suggested it would be fine for Nico to drop out of school and try to _find himself_ in New York City. Marie, however, doesn’t back down in their maternal staring contest; Mrs. Grace blinks before glancing with a wrinkled nose at Nico’s half-eaten slice of lasagna and sighs.

“I can get saran wrap from the cabinet,” offers Jason.

 

The cardboard boxes pushed against the wall near the window makes their living room look like a work in progress, and the furniture choice further emphasizes it. Backed up against the wall, there’s a white, angular-looking leather loveseat and a dark, square coffee table with a matching tv stand spaced in front of it. On top of the coffee table sat a laptop and a magazine with a picture of a dark-haired woman in white on the cover, titled _Military Spouse_ in pink and green lettering. The only item contained in the TV stand is the familiar navy and white-starred canton of the U.S. flag, folded into its standard triangle and encased in glass and wood above a display of medals and badges.

Jason's the first to talk. "So, what were you thinking of?"

Nico hopes his confusion doesn’t give way, but then he hears Hazel say, “I’ve been trying to get Nico to watch _Pushing Daisies_. He thinks it’s too _bright_.”

Both Hazel and Jason stifle laughs that are subsequently sobered by Nico’s glare.

“If it’s so good, then why didn’t it get picked up for a second season?” He immediately regrets his quip when Hazel gives him the look. Her light, yellowy eyes are wide and sad, and Nico can’t take it. “Fine.”

Jason places himself in the center of the small white sofa and grabs the laptop off of the coffee table. Nico takes a seat on his left, as close to the edge as he can go.

“Oh, I’m like, hogging up all the room on here,” says Jason with a laugh. He hands Nico the laptop and slides down the seat.

“It’s alright.” Hazel’s voice is an octave higher than usual, and Nico thinks that he can see red flooding her dark-colored cheeks before she plants herself next to him.

After handing over the laptop, Nico tries to suppress his groan when he hears a too-happy voice narrate the story of Ned the pie-maker and his girlfriend, Chuck.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of the fic is taken from "Fake You Out" by Twenty-One Pilots.
> 
> I realize that there are ~~probably~~ definitely flaws in my writing, since I've never written (and finished) long stories before, so any constructive criticism would be appreciated.


End file.
